Ambient abuse is the stealth, subtle,
underground currents of maltreatment that sometimes go unnoticed even by the
victims themselves, until it is too late. Ambient abuse penetrates and
permeates everything  but is difficult to pinpoint and identify. It is
ambiguous, atmospheric, diffuse. Hence its insidious and pernicious effects. It
is by far the most dangerous kind of abuse there is.

It is the outcome of fear  fear of violence,
fear of the unknown, fear of the unpredictable, the capricious, and the
arbitrary. It is perpetrated by dropping subtle hints, by disorienting, by
constant  and unnecessary  lying, by persistent doubting and demeaning, and
by inspiring an air of unmitigated gloom and doom ("gaslighting").

Ambient abuse, therefore, is the fostering,
propagation, and enhancement of an atmosphere of fear, intimidation,
instability, unpredictability and irritation. There are no acts of traceable
explicit abuse, nor any manipulative settings of control. Yet, the irksome
feeling remains, a disagreeable foreboding, a premonition, a bad omen.

In the long term, such an environment
erodes the victim's sense of self-worth and self-esteem.
Self-confidence is shaken badly. Often, the victim adopts a paranoid or
schizoid stance and thus renders himself or herself exposed even more to
criticism and judgment. The roles are thus reversed: the victim is
considered mentally deranged and the abuser  the suffering soul.

There are five categories of ambient abuse
and they are often combined in the conduct of a single abuser:

I. Inducing Disorientation

The abuser causes the victim to lose faith in
her ability to manage and to cope with the world and its demands. She no longer
trusts her senses, her skills, her strengths, her friends, her family, and the
predictability and benevolence of her environment.

The abuser subverts the target's focus by
disagreeing with her way of perceiving the world, her judgment, the facts of
her existence, by criticizing her incessantly  and by offering plausible but
specious alternatives. By constantly lying, he blurs the line between reality
and nightmare.

By recurrently disapproving of her choices
and actions  the abuser shreds the victim's self-confidence and shatters her
self-esteem. By reacting disproportionately to the slightest
"mistake"  he intimidates her to the point of paralysis.

II. Incapacitating

The abuser gradually and surreptitiously
takes over functions and chores previously adequately and skilfully performed
by the victim. The prey finds itself isolated from the outer world, a hostage
to the goodwill  or, more often, ill-will  of her captor. She is crippled by
his encroachment and by the inexorable dissolution of her boundaries and ends
up totally dependent on her tormentor's whims and desires, plans and
stratagems.

Moreover, the abuser engineers
impossible, dangerous, unpredictable, unprecedented, or highly specific
situations in which he is sorely needed. The abuser makes sure that his
knowledge, his skills, his connections, or his traits are the only ones
applicable and the most useful in the situations that he, himself,
wrought. The abuser generates his own indispensability.

III. Shared Psychosis (folie a deux)

The abuser creates a fantasy world, inhabited
by the victim and himself, and besieged by imaginary enemies. He allocates to
the abused the role of defending this invented and unreal Universe. She must
swear to secrecy, stand by her abuser no matter what, lie, fight, pretend,
obfuscate and do whatever else it takes to preserve this oasis of inanity.

Her membership in the abuser's
"kingdom" is cast as a privilege and a prize. But it is not to be
taken for granted. She has to work hard to earn her continued affiliation. She
is constantly being tested and evaluated. Inevitably, this interminable stress
reduces the victim's resistance and her ability to "see straight".

From the first moments of an encounter with
another person, the abuser is on the prowl. He collects information. The
more he knows about his potential victim  the better able he is to coerce,
manipulate, charm, extort or convert it "to the cause".
The abuser does not hesitate to misuse the information he gleans,
regardless of its intimate nature or the circumstances in which he obtained it.
This is a powerful tool in his armory.

V. Control by Proxy

If all else fails, the abuser recruits
friends, colleagues, mates, family members, the authorities, institutions,
neighbours, the media, teachers  in short, third parties  to do his
bidding. He uses them to cajole, coerce, threaten, stalk, offer, retreat,
tempt, convince, harass, communicate and otherwise manipulate his target. He
controls these unaware instruments exactly as he plans to control his ultimate
prey. He employs the same mechanisms and devices. And he dumps his props
unceremoniously when the job is done.

Another form of control by proxy is to
engineer situations in which abuse is inflicted upon another person. Such
carefully crafted scenarios of embarrassment and humiliation provoke
social sanctions (condemnation, opprobrium, or even physical punishment)
against the victim. Society, or a social group become the instruments of the
abuser.

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